The scurs continue to keep bringing some warm temperatures our way although some areas need some rain. Will they catch a passing shower? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 70s and lows near 60. Mostly sunny Thursday with highs in the low 80s and lows in the lower 60s. Mostly sunny for Friday becoming partly cloudy with a good chance of evening showers and thunderstorms. Saturday, partly cloudy with a modest chance of a shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the upper 70s and lows in the mid 60s. Partly cloudy Sunday with another modest chance for a shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the lower 80s and lows in the lower 60s. Mostly sunny on Monday with a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the mid 80s and lows near 60. Mostly sunny with a possible shower or thunderstorm. Highs near 80 and lows in the mid 60s. We continue losing daylight at slightly more than a minute per day, having lost 20 minutes on July 15th since the summer solstice. The normal high for July 15th is 83 and the normal low is 62. The scurs don’t care about how much daylight there is. They just want as much time as they can get in the hammock before the first frost.
My how things change in the fields in a week. Corn is now over waist high in most fields planted in our four-day May planting window and has shown some signs of moisture stress. Odd one might think given all the rain we had, but roots haven’t needed to reach for moisture so the root systems are shallow. This has also made nitrogen difficult to reach and some fields have benefitted from supplemental N applications. Soybeans continue to move along as well with many of the fields planted in June now beginning to blossom. By publication time, most will have thrown in the towel on soybean planting. Typically by July 10th, all bets are off for those who have planted beans after peas in this area. It’s time. Small grains continue to fill and head toward maturity. Planting date may have sealed the crop’s fate although with some cooler weather and a timely rain it may be better than it looks. We shall see. Contending with the prevented plant acreages has provided an additional challenge to the growing season. I had to laugh as I watched a neighbor go by with a large, folded up digger full of weeds, resembling a giant dump rake. Some are spraying first then working the fields while others need to work it down first as the fields are still pretty rough from last fall’s primary tillage. It’s a mess any way you slice it.
Area lawns and gardens have begun to show some signs of the hit and miss July rainfall pattern that has become entrenched the past two years. At the ranch the slope that had greened up first has, as predicted, dried out in spots. The growth of the rest of the lawn has slowed appreciably so that mowing once a week should be about right. Not that there’s time to mow it more frequently anyway, it’s just nice to think it could be. The seeds planted in the garden have taken off as well they should. The calendar will say mid-July shortly after press time and race is on for them to produce seed for the next generation. Every hill of cucumbers came up and the sweet corn has all emerged. While the string beans are a little uneven a soaking rain should remedy that. All the blue salvia, gazania and flowering kale made it into the ground while Mrs. Cheviot was away. Watering them became a necessity as the winds blew for much of the weekend. It should be interesting to see if the bunnies like blue salvia as well as they did the red stuff.
It has been a good summer for biting insects thus far. The mosquitoes can be counted on to come and find you if the breezes don’t cooperate. I don’t know what variety these mosquitoes are but they gang tackle you and waste no time about getting down to business. Even when the breeze does cooperate, the stable flies pick up where the mosquitoes leave off. Checking my legs and the back of my neck after playing weekend warrior, they are peppered with welts and bumps. As a result few things in life give me more satisfaction than swatting mosquitoes and stable flies. It’s just a darn good thing wood ticks can’t fly. There was an “insect” in the bathroom I could not identify the other day. Something was lurking on the counter behind some stuff so I had rolled a magazine up to smack it. Turns out it was just a hunk of my eyebrow with surgical glue still attached. I wondered why it didn’t move much.
At the feeders the new crop of orioles have showed up, both the Baltimore and orchard types. The young Baltimore orioles seem to show up anywhere and everywhere, in the trees by the house to in the barns and especially on the jelly feeders. I’m guessing neighbor David has provided much of their nesting habitat and we supply their favorite food. It’s just good to see them. We’ve been noticing some different behavior in the brown thrashers, namely their taking a shine to the ear corn feeder. More than once I’ve watched one pluck a kernel of corn, fly to the ground and proceed to wail on it with its beak to consume it.
I am much obliged to all those who have taken the time to express their condolences on my mom’s recent passing. Receiving all the hugs, e-mails, text messages, phone calls, cards and letters let me know how much people care. In particular those who watched out for me while Mrs. Cheviot was gone to Michigan kept me from staying home by myself and just working. Not that I didn’t work, it just wasn’t the only matter to be concerned with. I enjoyed taking a breather if only for an afternoon or an evening. While time heals all wounds, socializing is the salve that helps expedite the process and I am grateful.
See you next week…real good then.